What They Forgot to Mention About Olympic Skier Julia Mancuso

This winter’s Olympics have seen the usual sentimental media saturation of weepy or aw-shucks back stories on the athletes. Overcoming adversity is often the theme: Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette soldiered on to win the bronze just days after her mother died of a heart attack. There’s often more than one story of an athlete triumphing over career-threatening injury; or, the multiple stories of a parents’ sacrifice — the driving, the financial burden — to support their talented progeny up to the medal stand. NBC did an up-close story on the winningest winter games American medalist, skater Apolo Ono, who, as an unruly teenager, tried his single parent dad, a Japanese immigrant to the U.S., to the point that the father plunked his son in a wilderness cabin and left him there for a week to ponder his future. It worked.

There is even the obverse, but rare, tale that dares to suggest negative parenting: Cheri Davis, the mother of African-American speed skater and medalist Shani, was called a “polarizing” figure by the New York Times last week, passing along the skating-circuit view of a sports mother as a version of the pushy backstage mother of yore. Cheri, it would seem, might rival Gypsy Rose Lee’s mother for aggressiveness on behalf of her darling. The Times suggested a possible tepid defense that Cheri was just a caring mother standing up for her son. Worse, the Times passed along anonymous whispers accusing Ms Davis of playing the race card whenever she found fault with U.S. Olympic skating officials, or other skaters, in the treatment of her son. And yet, the very fact the Times did the story would no doubt be one more racist arrow in Cheri’s quiver, considering that the august newspaper and others simply ignored the tawdry story of skier Julia Mancuso’s devoted ski-dad, Ciro Mancuso: a convicted drug cartel crime boss.

While most of the media was caught up in the rivalry-cum-cat fight between gold medalist skier Lindsey Vonn and her three time medalist rival, Julia (a slalom gold from the Torino games and two silvers in Vancouver), they all ignored the back story of the tiara-wearing princess whose private bus and whole career was boosted by her doting father. Not that it was breaking news exactly. Four years ago, the father’s criminality was glossed over as being behind him and not amounting to much. The storyline was, Julia had overcome that adversity and her father was nowhere to be seen, although he hid out in the general seating areas so as not to embarrass his daughter. But it was much more than that, certainly in the ethos of the hip world both father and daughter occupy.

His legal troubles stemmed from a 1989 arrest which itself was the result of a federal task force investigation hearkening back to the 1970s. The Reno, Nevada investigators had a hard on for the wealthy Squaw Valley developer, and they initially seized his beautiful homes in Squaw and Hawaii along with millions of dollars in Swiss and California banks, along with some of the cash buried on some of his other real estate holdings in northern California and Nevada. He seemed destined to serve a long prison sentence.

But the federal prosecutors soon turned their sights on what they thought was an even juicier target to put away: Ciro’s long time attorney and putative friend, Patrick “Butch” Hallinan. Hallinan was a colorful, prominent Bay Area attorney whose clients had included Bill Honig (the California state education czar) and others. Moreover, he was the son of a legendary leftist attorney, Vincent, an accused Communist who ran for U.S President on the Progressive ticket in 1952. All the Hallinans were known for their leftist activism, including his mother Vivian, who demonstrated against Pinochet in Chile while wearing eye-popping jewels and designer clothes.

Offering Ciro inducements in return for cooperating in nailing his former attorney, the drug importer put on a wire and sold out his attorney and named all his best ski buddies and partners. He even edited the long pages of indictments against Hallinan for the prosecution, helping with the charges. Moreover, Ciro, with prosecution’s blessing, headed down to Mexico to talk a “witness” and co-conspirator into heading north to testify. So Ciro even acted as a federal agent, a point that eventually would be ripped apart by Hallinan’s defense. Ciro’s various properties initially seized by the government were returned to him, along with his bank accounts and millions of cash dollars, without tax agents even looking into the case.

It took six years for L. Anthony “Tony” White, the chief prosecutor, to bring the case to trial against Hallinan. Many defense attorneys rallied to Hallinan’s cause, viewing the racketeering charges under the RICO act as open season on any criminal defense attorney. Hallinan was respected and had done what any good attorney would do, they argued, such as advising co-conspirators to leave the country so they couldn’t testify against his clients, or hiring lawyers for them, acts which contributed to obstruction of justice charges. One ex federal prosecutor weighed in that if the government went after every attorney the way they did after Hallinan, “almost all defense attorneys would be put in jail.”

Even San Francisco’s then federal prosecutor Michael Yamaguchi intervened to stop what he regarded as a dangerous precedent for the U.S. Justice Department tantamount to declaring war on lawyers. Hallinan’s wife Lauren said Yamaguchi confided in her that he had traveled back to Washington five times trying to get them to withdraw support for the Reno prosecutors. But he failed.

Hallinan’s attorney was more than up to the job. A bold-face-named lawyer who had successfully prosecuted Oliver North in the Iran-Contra case, John Keker ripped apart Tony White’s case on the stand. In the end the blue-collar the jury took only 5 hours to acquit Hallinan. But it was all costly: Hallinan’s wife said it cost more than a million dollars. “And,” she said by phone this week, “Butch had a huge law practice at the time that was hurt badly. He earned no income during that year.” She said his practice never fully recovered.

The tape recordings Ciro made didn’t prove that Butch had acted as consigliere for the huge cartel business, or anything criminal, and Hallinan walked. The jury foreman publicly opined afterwards that Ciro had all the credibility of “a used car salesman.”

The prosecution blamed Ciro for the failed case. He was sentenced to nine years but served only four and was out in 1999, quickly putting together his charmed life again. Not long after, The Tahoe Quarterly called him an “aging preppie” and ex-felon who “exudes an easygoing air,” and the writer gushed on: “Aided by a high-alpine deep tan, he looks more like 38 than 58. He loves architecture.” And Ciro has glossed over what he has done, and especially has omitted the more unsightly mess he made as a rat fink for the Feds — at least in the eyes of most of Hallinan’s supporters and other defense attorneys: “It’s easy for some to label me a terrible criminal. I was a product of the sixties, and, to me, this wasn’t criminal stuff. I didn’t find it morally wrong… We were a bunch of close friends, guys I skied with, who decided to smuggle marijuana.” Of course, Ciro turned in his friends as well, and all 13 of them also trotted into the witness box against Hallinan. And it wasn’t just a little pot; it was enormous amounts of the stuff, ship after ship, and millions of dollars.

But Ciro charmed with his looks and his insouciant air. And so does his daughter, who is also a great skier. She has overcome a lot about her father, including a few years of estrangement from him. She has credited him as her biggest booster in her rise to being an Olympic champion in ’06. (Her parents divorced years ago and both have remarried to others.) Few would ever blame her for her father’s sins, including both Hallinan and his wife. “I haven’t seen her since she was three,” Hallinan said last week, “and don’t hold anything against her.” He claims he’s no longer bitter about Ciro (he sued unsuccessfully Mancuso immediately after his not guilty verdict); he blames the Feds more, although his wife is not that sanguine about it.

Still, Julia raises hackles among Vonn’s supporters in the girls’ rivalry, with Julia bristling that all the media attention making Vonn the “it girl” of the current ski world, with all her injuries and a Sports Illustrated cover, is just a “popularity contest” that detracts from the sport. And Vonn saw fit to mention that when the two girls were friends as teenagers and fellow junior skiers, that during an invitation to the Mancuso’s 6000 square foot Tahoe mountain top home she went out mountain bike riding with Ciro and Julia, who were experienced bikers. To her teenaged chagrin, father and daughter took off and left her struggling, five miles behind on the mountain. Perhaps that was when the antipathy began.

Julia, the self-ordained princess who dons a tiny toy tiara, mouthing “kiss my tiara” to the cameras after a good ski run as a kind of verbal fist pumping, is shamelessly promoting her “Kiss My Tiara” lingerie line, as the media puts it, usually failing to mention that it is composed of racy thongs and boy cut underpants. Her web site of that name is temporarily down because of Olympics rules on commercial enterprises of athletes, but Julia who has posed in her undies with skis to promote her “fashion” slips in the references and nobody cares. It fits with her “free spirit.” She knocks Vonn for being too serious, boring and analytical a skier, while she claims to only care for the joy of skiing, not the money which she still has plenty of, nor even the medals.

Nevertheless, Julia cried on Wednesday when Vonn’s mishap interrupted her own run, which she had to do over later when the conditions had deteriorated. And she cried again on Thursday when her blistering second run only brought her to 8th overall. (If only Thursday were counted, she would have earned bronze.) Her Bode-Miller-I-just-love-to-ski-for-the-hell-of-it-mystique imploded. To her credit, it didn’t last long. She shrugged it off later. Meanwhile, Vonn, but not Julia will ski in Vancouver one more time, perhaps to pick up a third medal and pull even with her old rival. Julia, no longer feeling the joy, chose to drop out of her last Alpine event and go home.

Ciro Mancuso was a snitch and entrapper, along with being a self-described cool 60s-type dope smuggler, but NBC, the New York Timeset al., didn’t bring it up; nor do they look too closely at her panties business. Can anyone imagine the media ignoring those stories if the athlete had been, say Tonya Harding? But Julia is a princess, not white trash, and maybe Cheri Davis is on to something after all about the differing treatment of athletes.

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15 Responses to “What They Forgot to Mention About Olympic Skier Julia Mancuso”

Harding was implicated in trying to physical disable a competitor. Mancuso has done no such thing. Who cares about her lingerie line? And who wouldn’t cry if someone else’s fuckup (Princess Vonn’s) screwed your chances of getting a medal (and therefore increasing your earning potential off the slopes?) As this article states- she shrugged it off. And no mention is made why she has chosen not to ski the last event, other than to imply some kind of spoiled brat behavior.

This is actually a story of an athlete rising adversity – having a felon for a dad isn’t a picnic, I’m sure.
This is a poor article and not worthy of the Rumpus.

I agree the comparison to Tonya Harding doesn’t hold water, and Julie Mancuso shouldn’t be tarred by anything her father did or didn’t do, but I don’t agree this is a poor article. I found it informative and well written. And looking at an athlete’s background is fair game if, as in this case, her family’s wealth contributed mightily to the athlete’s development. I wouldn’t exactly call it a case of rising from adversity, not if by adversity the above commenter is referring to Mancuso’s father’s troubles with the law.

While I find your article entertaining, it is deplorable that many of your facts are simply false about my case. When making such an individual attack, professional ethics should require verification of facts before they are printed. Shame on you.

This article is utter nonsense. The girl was 5 years old when a posse of narcs surrounded her house and arrested her father while she was home. He was locked up for several years. Her parents divorced. Apparently there has been a degree of reconciliation between the father and the family. This is probably a good thing, since you only get one father. It is certainly not worth the indignation expressed by the author. The story is so old that it is of no interest, and none of it reflects badly on the daughter.

While I’ve come to expect, and enjoy, the Rumpus’ scathing comments on things that only get superficially positive attention elsewhere, this strikes me as sort of petty.
The thesis here seems to be that Mancuso is spoiled, and has tricked everyone into thinking she’s a sweet little thing, while making Vonn look like an ice-queen bitch.
To which I must say, so what? Mancuso is spoiled, Vonn is a bitch – Is that really what matters?
They are both accomplished athletes, who’ve achieved more than most people ever will and done it despite personality issues, or family problems. Good for them – Most people will let injury, family issues, traumatic childhood experiences with Federal raids or other petty issues define their lives either in moments, or over the duration. Mancuso and Vonn (and every other Olympian) have proven that they can overcome the ratshit that most people let rule them.
We should celebrate them for that, without expecting them to be performing machines, or trained animals doing tricks on call while suppressing their natural instincts.
When they have moments of weakness, when they have a bad day or a bad run, or gain or lose an opportunity to make money by tacking their name on things, why do they have less right to react as human beings than some schlub or schlubette at home on their couch?

Wow. Sixteen paragraphs, over 1,800 words devoted to the flawed declaration that this unfortunate aspect of Ms. Mancuso’s father’s past was never mentioned. What a waste you’ve made devoting your time and energy into such petty and malignant intent. I saw the piece they did on her in the first few days of the Olympics and they made sure to throw that in there. It was not glossed over. It was perfectly spelled out. I remember thinking how insensitive and unflattering a backstory and wondering what that had to do with the athlete’s performance or my interest. You should apologize to this woman, her father and to the readers of Rumpus for wasting their time with such meaningless prattle.

I guess so unless they did a feature on every single American athlete that performed at Vancouver. Wait a minute – it’s not a perfect world? Wow, I learn something new every day! What I would like to know is what exactly was “selective” about this year’s reporting – specifically please? How would you define this “selectivity” that you speak of? The article says they reported on this person and not that person or they reported good things about this person but reported on another in a “bad” light but that really doesn’t mean anything. Not really, especially if the reporting that was being done was FACTUAL! Maybe I need it spelled out for me?

Bottom line is that people are different and complicated, some for better and some for worse and everyone is going to have a different opinion about everyone else! That’s the way this world works. Too many people these days want to be able to define the world in black and white only and it will NEVER work that way!

It is unfortunate that the issues of Ms. Mancuso’s father’s past have to be constantly publicized. It is through her will, determination, and grit that she was able to put this traumatic event behind her and become an Olympic champion.

It was just “dumb” luck that it had to be Lindsey Vonn who fell in front of her, making her redo her first run. Of course the media ate this up.

By my calculations, if Mancuso would have only placed between #2 and #10 on the first run and raced the second run the same time, she would have won the gold medal. It is clear that Mancuso is a competitor, and has a winning drive; I thought it was a healthy and natural thing for her to cry after the disappointment due to the circumstances of the first GS race.

Her skiing prowess and drive are also illustrated in her downhill and combined events silver medals. She does not have a “prototypical” women’s downhill body, she is shorter and lighter, yet she still took two silvers.

As a society, our country is incarcerating people at an alarming rate. Mancuso’s drive and ambition to get over this traumatic event could be a role model for the millions of children in this country whose father or mother has been incarcerated while they are growing up. She took the frustration out on the slopes. For other children it could also be positive outlets, such as: academics, athletics, outdoor activities or hobbies

Julia’s a great athlete and quite a character, but her dad’s past stinks and is fair game and thanks for putting it on the table. But don’t indite the daughter for his crap. I can remember my best friend and his dad out hiking me when I was a kid and it left me feeling like shit and if true, does say something about them, mainly him. Shame to see that Vonn and her can’t get over it and get along. At the end of the day I wish Mancuso the best and enjoy her racing and personality, but the fact is dear old dad made huge profits on the profound misery of a lot of people to get his millions. While we all make mistakes, (me included), and should get a second chance, it should be coupled some indication of regret, and none is ever really demonstrated by him. A lot of people damaged (the drug users). I wonder how much of the millions he kept he’s donated to drug rehab facilites?

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